When death is not a problem: Regulating implicit negative affect under mortality salience

Terror management theory assumes that death arouses existential anxiety in humans which is suppressed in focal attention. Whereas most studies provide indirect evidence for negative affect under mortality salience by showing cultural worldview defenses and self‐esteem strivings, there is only little direct evidence for implicit negative affect under mortality salience. In the present study, we assume that this implicit affective reaction towards death depends on people's ability to self‐regulate negative affect as assessed by the personality dimension of action versus state orientation. Consistent with our expectations, action‐oriented participants judged artificial words to express less negative affect under mortality salience compared to control conditions whereas state‐oriented participants showed the reversed pattern.     

Distinguished Lecture: Social structure,narrative and explanation

Recent work on social injustice has focused on implicit bias as an important factor in explaining persistent injustice in spite of achievements on civil rights. In this paper, I argue that because of its individualism, implicit bias explanation, taken alone, is inadequate to explain ongoing injustice; and, more importantly, it fails to call attention to what is morally at stake. An adequate account of how implicit bias functions must situate it within a broader theory of social structures and structural injustice; changing structures is often a precondition for changing patterns of thought and action and is certainly required for durable change.     

Property and prejudice: How racial attitudes and social‐evaluative concerns shape property appraisals

Property evaluations rarely occur in the absence of social context. However, no research has investigated how intergroup processes related to prejudice extend to concepts of property. In the present research, we propose that factors such as group status, prejudice and pressure to mask prejudiced attitudes affect how people value the property of racial ingroup and outgroup members. In Study 1, White American and Asian American participants were asked to appraise a hand‐painted mug that was ostensibly created by either a White or an Asian person. Asian participants demonstrated an ingroup bias. White participants showed an outgroup bias, but this effect was qualified. Specifically, among White participants, higher racism towards Asian Americans predicted higher valuations of mugs created by Asian people. Study 2 revealed that White Americans' prejudice towards Asian Americans predicted higher valuations of the mug created by an Asian person only when participants were highly concerned about conveying a non‐prejudiced personal image. Our results suggest that, ironically, prejudiced majority group members evaluate the property of minority group members whom they dislike more favourably. The current findings provide a foundation for melding intergroup relations research with research on property and ownership.     

Observer judgmental accuracy of personality: Benefits related to being a good (normative) judge

The current study tested the hypothesis that accuracy of personality judgment would be positively related to beneficial life outcomes. 189 participants observed targets across 5 dyadic interactions and made judgments of the 10 targets on the Big Five traits. Self and acquaintance ratings were used as the accuracy criteria. Normative accuracy for all traits was related to agreeableness, and normative accuracy for some traits was positively related to interpersonal control, interpersonal support, positive affect, and life satisfaction. Distinctive accuracy was not related to beneficial outcomes. These results imply that normative accuracy based on observation is associated with beneficial outcomes, whereas distinctive accuracy is not.     

Predicting Political Biases Against the Occupy Wall Street and Tea Party Movements

Accusations of hypocrisy have flown against both supporters and opponents of the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) and Tea Party movements. Integrating the ideologically objectionable premise model (IOPM), a newly devised model of political judgment, with political tolerance research, we find that how the political activities of OWS and Tea Party demonstrators are described determines whether or not biases against these groups emerge among people low and high in right‐wing authoritarianism (RWA). Specifically, people low in RWA were more biased against the Tea Party than OWS regardless of whether the groups engaged in normatively threatening or reassuring political behavior, whereas people high in RWA were more biased against OWS than the Tea Party when the groups engaged in normatively threatening (and therefore objectionable), but not normatively reassuring (and therefore acceptable) behavior. These findings further support the IOPM's contention that premise objectionableness, not right‐wing orientation, determines biases in political judgment.     

A Below‐Average Effect with Respect to American Political Stereotypes on Warmth and Competence

The “above‐average effect” is the phenomenon that people tend to judge themselves above average on desirable traits. Based on social identity theory, we propose that a “below‐average effect” may arise when individuals rate themselves and the average ingroup member on traits stereotypically associated with the ingroup. In two studies, Republican and Democrat participants rated themselves and the average political ingroup member on possession of desirable traits related to warmth and competence. Current political stereotypes in America associate the former dimension with Democrats and the latter with Republicans. Consistent with our hypothesis, the above‐average effect was moderated by political group and dimension in interaction. In particular, Democrats rated themselves below the average Democrat on warmth and Republicans rated themselves below the average Republican on competence.     

The Wished‐For Always Wins Until the Winner Was Inevitable All Along: Motivated Reasoning and Belief Bias Regulate Emotion During Elections

How do biases affect political information processing? A variant of the Wason selection task, which tests for confirmation bias, was used to characterize how the dynamics of the recent U.S. presidential election affected how people reasoned about political information. Participants were asked to evaluate pundit‐style conditional claims like “The incumbent always wins in a year when unemployment drops” either immediately before or immediately after the 2012 presidential election. A three‐way interaction between ideology, predicted winner (whether the proposition predicted that Obama or Romney would win), and the time of test indicated complex effects of bias on reasoning. Before the election, there was partial evidence of motivated reasoning—liberals performed especially well at looking for falsifying information when the pundit's claim predicted Romney would win. After the election, once the outcome was known, there was evidence of a belief bias—people sought to falsify claims that were inconsistent with the real‐world outcome rather than their ideology. These results suggest that people seek to implicitly regulate emotion when reasoning about political predictions. Before elections, people like to think their preferred candidate will win. After elections, people like to think the winner was inevitable all along.     

The effect of preterm birth on infant negative affect and maternal postpartum depressive symptoms: A preliminary examination in an underrepresented minority sample

ObjectiveTo examine the effect of preterm birth on maternal postpartum depressive symptoms and infant negative affect in an underrepresented minority sample.MethodParticipants were 102 mothers and their 3- to 10-month-old infants. Mothers completed the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale and the Infant Behavior Questionnaire-Revised.ResultsRelative to normative samples, the current underrepresented minority sample of mostly Hispanics and Blacks displayed high rates of preterm birth (30%) and maternal postpartum depressive symptoms (17%). Preterm birth had a significant direct effect on postpartum depressive symptoms and infant negative affect. Additionally, there was an indirect effect of postpartum depressive symptoms on the relation between preterm birth and infant negative affect. Specifically, lower birth weight and gestational age predicted higher levels of depressive symptoms in the mother, and higher levels of depressive symptoms in the mother, in turn, predicted higher levels of infant negative affect.ConclusionFindings emphasize the importance of screening for postpartum depressive symptoms and infant negative affect among mothers and their preterm infants, especially among families from underrepresented minority backgrounds.     

A Single Counterexample Leads to Moral Belief Revision

What kind of evidence will lead people to revise their moral beliefs? Moral beliefs are often strongly held convictions, and existing research has shown that morality is rooted in emotion and socialization rather than deliberative reasoning. In addition, more general issues—such as confirmation bias—further impede coherent belief revision. Here, we explored a unique means for inducing belief revision. In two experiments, participants considered a moral dilemma in which an overwhelming majority of people judged that it was inappropriate to take action to maximize utility. Their judgments contradicted a utilitarian principle they otherwise strongly endorsed. Exposure to this scenario led participants to revise their belief in the utilitarian principle, and this revision persisted over several hours. This method provides a new avenue for inducing belief revision.